Hi Reader,

I hope you've been well. We had our annual planning meeting in January, and now I'm excited to get everything done! One big change is the work we've been doing to become more flexible to work with.

For years, we've created beautiful and strategic custom websites. Then, a couple of years ago, we introduced a quick and effective Website In a Week service. That service has grown a bit, and we'll be renaming it (because, though we're fast, there are often some things the shop owner needs to work on).

But what if your needs fall somewhere in between? You don't need a completely custom site, but your business has been around for years and needs more than what we can do in a week. I'm happy to say that we now have a mid-level project that we'll be naming and talking about soon.

In the meantime, though, if you feel you may fall in this middle area (need more than a basic theme, and less than completely custom), please email me back so I can share more. We're already doing this project for people, and we'd be glad to include you before we get it fully unveiled.

In a similar vein, we've come up with a clever idea for working with you on an ongoing basis, even if your needs are too irregular to want to fill a monthly quota of our time. So, if you'd like to have Aeolidia in your back pocket for a few months at a time, then focus on other initiatives before returning to optimize your site - we can do that now.

If your wishlist of site changes is starting to build up and you don't have a reliable team to execute them for you, get in touch with me and we can work on a plan.

I'm excited to have even more flexibility in helping you out, so if we haven't seemed like a good fit for you in the past, it's worth talking about again. Please respond to this email to let me know what you want to work on next and I'll see how I can help.

And, if all is well with your site right now, we've got some great tips on growing your mailing list, below!

Q&A

Here's a reader question about email marketing, from Lori, as answered by Helen Hulskamp, Ecommerce Strategist on our team:

Q: Lori asks, "How do we grow our email list?"

A: This question pops up (no pun intended) in our community again and again. If your newsletter list growth has been losing momentum, here are our favorite tried and true strategies:

Offer a great incentive such as a discount of free download.
Add a pop-up form to your website.
Include a newsletter signup form in the footer of your website so it shows up on every page.
Add bonus content and a newsletter sign-up form to your top landing pages.
Create a product recommendation quiz.
If your site already offers free digital downloads, put these pages to work by requiring an email sign-up.
Create a signup page with its own URL so you can easily promote your list on other platforms.
Encourage social media followers to join your email list.
If you have a Shopify site, make sure to go to your checkout settings and turn on the option to collect subscribers at checkout.
Promote your newsletter in your brick-and-mortar store, if you have one, and at any in-person events.
Giveaways, contests, and partnerships can have mixed results so use these wisely.
Consider A/B testing to help you fine-tune your sign-up offers.
Treat your subscribers like the VIPs that they are and then follow through with early access, special offers, and exclusive content.

There is a lot to be said about email list growth. I've elaborated on each point here in a new blog post.

Question: Answered

Our team includes experts in branding, design, development, email & SMS/text marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, conversion optimization, ecommerce strategy, business growth and more. Email me back with your question! I'll consult one of our experts and share one response per week over email.

Interesting Clickables

⚓️ Read past issues of Aeolidia's newsletter here

If you're in the Pacific Northwest, join me at Camp ThunderCraft April 19th - 21st. I'll be teaching Achievable Ways to Increase Online Sales.
Stacie Bloomfield is offering a free 5-day portfolio-building challenge.
Reminder if you're using Mint to track your finances: it's time to switch before they shut it down. I've moved to Monarch Money and like it much better - check it out if you're looking for a replacement (or just want to start tracking your personal finances better). Get it free for 30 days with my link, above.